I just wanted to review to say I like this story, it seems like it could go anywhere from here. I just wonder how Adam must have felt when Eve was talking to 'God' and the snake. I got the impression that Eve was aware enough about her surroundings before eating the fruit but Adam didn't seem to understand even part of it. Anyway, I thought it was really well writ, thank you for posting it.

OMG, I love this story. This is pure gold. The descriptions are so beautifully crafted and your use of language is amazing. It flows perfectly. This is the kind of stuff that should be published and promoted. Well done.

Yes, I love it! I was silly and didn't notice the genre, but then I started reading and had a pleasant surprise when I realized this was science fiction. I like Eve's personality and the way the world seems fleshed out. I especially liked the note that she jams her fingers in her ears when Adam is being annoying, lol. A few phrases were a little awkward, e.g. "Slender, midnight-dark limbs unfolded and rose as Eve stood up" - I like the "slender...rose" and the "Eve stood up" parts, but together, they strike me as strange.

Anyway, I definitely hope you continue this. A sci-fi future with tinges of religion - nice... I am especially curious about what kind of personality Adam will have after he eats the apple, and what kind of role Eve will play in the future.

Lord Jafar chapter 1 . 8/18/2006

I quite enjoyed this.

In a few boring minutes before I go to lunch, I read this, and am very keen to see more of Eve's travails...

Way to go for having a racially realistic Adam and Eve (well, you know, as realistic as they are...)! The telepathy with the Garden is also a unique idea. I'm not sure 'foolishry' is a real word, it sounds a little strange. But this is definatly a very new take on the traditional Genesis story.

Very interestingly narrated tale, good descriptions, and the snake's dialogue with Eve, and then God, how he worked into the picture, being from another world, was great. Adam's confusion in the end and Eve's words about the apple set it up if you want to continue the story, yet also left it off at a nice ending if you want to leave it as a stand alone. Eve's discontent with the garden came across well, and the snake's reasons for interfering. Nice piece, I enjoyed reading it.

Sophy chapter 1 . 6/1/2006

Here we go again.

First off, I would not make both Adam and Eve black.

"Seeing that Adam became lonely, God created animals to accompany him but they were not quite enough[,]so Eve was created."

Describe the snake.

"He is not here," the snake said. I would use hissed and slithered. It would add mood to the chapter.

Lesson One To All Ye Who Peruse is ConCrit. As Requested. (Hopefully FP doesn't mind my review being word-for-word longer than your chap?) ...giggles... If this does not come through in its entirety I will email you a copy. Have no fear. Check for the word "Cheers." as the last line.

Review Notes : having drafted this rather spaciously in a text editor, I will apologize in advance for any characters or formatting that becomes convoluted or lost in transit to FP. Let me know if you would like me to email it to you.

Read through it once to enjoy it first, before drafting suggestions. And may I say that while I have given sufficient thought to the concept to suspect what was coming I still found the way you unfolded it to be intriguing. It snares the imagination and unfolds the possibilities, the mysteries, like an adult who eases the wrapping paper loose from a present one meticulous piece of tape at a time instead of ripping into it with the gusto of a child.

Your prose flows beautifully, with the perfect balance of description and being said, I noticed a few things.

“The cacophony never died down: as the day time animals settled down to sleep, the nocturnal ones took to the night for their food and pleasures, and the plants never slept all at once.” I would suggest considering ‘as daytime animals’ and ‘their nocturnal counterparts ...for food and pleasures’ simply because of the prevalence of ‘the’ in this sentence. Okay ‘counterparts’ might be slightly on the ‘formal’ side, admittedly, but... *decides to ponder this one a bit*“Beside Eve, Adam...” Use ‘her’ in this spot. You’ve introduced her to the reader and stacking their names, while it doesn’t precisely ‘clunk’, creates a hesitation in the fluidity at this point for some reason. In addition, later in the sentence “Adam slept without any sign that the thoughts bothered him.” the word ‘that’ can be completely eradicated without harming the intent. ‘That’ happens to be another one of those words easily hacked without injury to fluidity.“Slender, midnight-dark limbs unfolded and rose as Eve stood up and walked through the Garden.” ooh! Walking eyes, meet meandering appendages! *w00t* lol. Seriously, though - how about rephrasing this as ‘Unfolding slender, midnight-dark limbs, Eve rose and walked through the Garden.’“According to Adam, God had created the Garden and then created Adam to tend to it.” ‘Had’ is another one of those overused words. *offers a finely honed machete* Kill it! Also, since God is already creating can we consider the second ‘created’ as redundant? Just an idea, not too certain how well it would flow. More of an artistic call, as it is grammatically correct the way it is but... eh. “Seeing that Adam became lonely, God created animals to accompany him but they were not quite enough so Eve was created.” Slightly wordy sentence. Conveys a complex progression from A to B to C, and it might benefit from being rephrased into two sentences. And an alternative to ‘created’ might be ‘formed’...? This word *smacks it* turns up four times in the first two sentences of this paragraph and makes me want to strangle it. Considering structuring alternatives, need more caffeine *chugs coffee* ... this is one of those spots that will need some attention in the revision phase as this sentence structure interrupts the prose flow significantly. No, it doesn’t clunk or clank like a toddler smacking pots and pans around, but it’s noticable.“By hearing its every thoughts,” This should be ‘thought’, singular, referencing ‘every’.“In all her years in the Garden, Eve had never questioned her role. Even now that the thoughts kept her from sleep night after night, she still didn’t question her role.” Two sentences with the same ending. Viably, you could cut ‘her role’ off the second, and retain the reader’s awareness of the character’s intent. ‘That’! *ack* Let me tell you, once I was aware of those ‘overused words’, I started seeing them everywhere and let my machete fly when editing my own writing. How does this sound, as alternative structure: ‘Even now, when the constant flow of thoughts kept her from resting night after night, she didn’t question.’ Or ‘She didn’t question that, even with the thoughts keeping her from sleep night after night.’ as a more active voice alternative that would also vary the ending word structure. In which case the ensuing sentence “She just questioned the need to hear everything.” fits into the context and the three sentences vary and flow, underscoring the ‘questioning’ without seeming too repetitive.“...so that others could flourish;” *motions to the ‘That’ machete*Okay. And thus we have the appearance of Le Snake. I just want to point out one very distinct theological point that I feel is important here, because most people might not be aware of it. Let me just say first that I am not implying you must adhere to this in any fashion, but given my upbringing my knowledge of this minor point interrupted the flow of the story. LeSnake, in the Garden of fiction, was a beautiful one-of-a-kind creature that was not forced to grovel in the dust of the earth until punished and cursed to do so by God. Pre-curse, think something along the lines of a Chinese dragon - with the legs and such. Just felt the need to share that. Moving on.“...had patiently listened through his rants...” How about ‘patiently listening through his rants’ as an alternative structure for this fragment. Another option would be to simply excise ‘had’ from the part of the sentence set off by commas.“-truly she loved the Garden but if only God would hear the silent plea she sent out daily-” This clunks. I think it’s the ‘but if only’ that’s the real culprit, yet I’m having difficulty determining a viable alternative, considering the concept you’re attempting to convey here. However, given the context of the previous paragraph I’m wondering if perhaps you could omit this entire phrase altogether and ... *poof* ... no more problem. Thus, we would have ‘Walking away before the snake could question her lies, Eve went to her favorite spot.’ This hurries along her departure from LeSnake’s presence also, instead of making the reader linger for the moments it takes to supply the explanation - which isn’t succinctly necessary at this juncture, as we’ve been given a good view of Eve’s dilemma thus far. Serves to engage the reader a bit more in this fashion as well.“Eve sat under a willow,...” For some reason, I’m thinking ‘She sat under one of the willows,...’ would just fit here better. You vary your sentence structure so much that it’s not an issue, and specifying with ‘one of the’ flows better than ‘a’ since the previous sentence conveys that there are lots of the same sort of tree in this vicinity.“The thoughts of the willows...” hmm. Considering the context, I would suggest ‘The thoughts from the trees...’ as a good alternative improve the readability.“Insects flitted around, enjoying the sweet taste of mammalian blood; a great cat stalked an unsuspecting monkey in a nearby forest where also birds soared overhead in daring displays, hoping to impress the females who watched them and made sneering calls at their acrobatics.” Ouch. This is a really wordy sentence - and it serves the purpose of conveying just how cluttered her mind is with all these various thoughts, I am picking up on that. Just a couple minor things here, though, to make it flow more smoothly. Okay, first *pulls out a fresh blade* the ‘Also’ machete. Go ahead and take a whack. Then, may I suggest ‘in the nearby forest’. And reread the sentence. Much more fluid, I think, while at the same time maintaining that hectic, frantic state of constant activity in her mind.“...hoping that the snake would take the hint...” ‘That!’“In truth she had sometimes wondered why she never saw any other snakes but she had assumed that in the vast Garden she had simply not encountered any through the same principle of chance that led her to see many felines.” Lots of ‘had’ in this sentence. Makes for a slightly passive voice, and I think it would read better without any of them. And *pant pant* I think we need a comma in there somewhere, because I’m out of breath. Woh! Oh, and in taking out the ‘had’ family, you could make it read ‘...she simply didn’t encounter any...’. On that note, “to see many felines” seems grammatically awkward. How about ‘see so many’? Or, better yet, ‘through the same principle of chance causing her to see so many felines.’ Out, damn ‘that’, out I say! (Lady MacBeth reference, my apologies. It’s 4 am, and my muses incited insomnia. About two hours ago, now... *goes for more caffeine*)“She didn’t want to encourage the snake.” ‘the snake’ is repetitive here... may I suggest inserting ‘it’ instead, at least in this spot.“Narrowing her eyes at the reptile, Eve said, “And why should I believe you?” ”... No question as to who’s speaking here. How about simplifying it. ‘Eve narrowed her eyes at the reptile. “And why should I believe you?” ’ In that vein, I would suggest reviewing the dialogue as a whole where it involves the snake and edit it similarly. Utilizing variations of ‘she said’ here and there is alright, but since she is obviously the only one speaking, it’s rather unnecessary especially when her speech is preceded or followed by her reactions. “...she hoped that humouring its nonsense...” ‘That!’“...it looked like the most beautiful thing that Eve had ever seen.” ‘That!’ *please note I am not simply pointing out every instance, but specifically only the ones deserving of death for the purpose of flow. :)*“...that wafted up from the pale yellow flowers.” Try ‘wafting up from the pale...’ as a more engaging alternative. Yes, I’m a “That-Hater”. :) Oh. Sounds like a Dr. Seuss spin-off in the making. Laugh, please... gawd, muse-induced insomnia really bites.“Also, it never needed pruning or tending;” For some reason, the ‘also’ here feels like its dangling precariously like a hangnail just begging to be bitten/chewed/yanked off. While it’s considered ‘bad grammar’ to start a sentence with ‘And...’ I am inclined to say that it would facilitate greater flow in this instance.“She knew everything.” Love this. (Don’t all women, though?) Anyways. Using this sentence as a reference, nothing more. In the following sentence, conveying details of her newly acquired knowledge, it could do with a few less ‘had’s and ‘that’s, to facilitate a slightly more active voice. For instance, “How the original humans had come to war against each other,...” sounds better as ‘How the original humans warred against each other...’“Instinctively she now knew that she should not be like this.” ‘That!’ Also, this and its successor sentence begin with adjectives and it definitely clunks a wee bit. Could use some rephrasing.“...Eve jutted out her chin and said defiantly...” Stop the sentence at ‘chin.’ Her defiance is visible to the reader through your showing her attitude, without stating it. Let the dialogue stand alone.“materialised...” with a ‘z’ though, isn’t it? I can’t recall and this text editor has a very unreliable and pathetic spell checker. Rough Draft’s only downfall... :)“ “What news?” Eve asked when God said nothing.” How about ‘prompted’ instead of ‘asked’.“things will progress very differently to the original...” ‘from the original...’ reads better.“A moment later, God told Eve...” Clunk. :) Not sure how to rephrase this one to fix it, but considering its placement at the end of this chapter, it screams at me for attention. -You DaVinci-Code-loving heretic! Just kidding. *wink* To conclude, I would like to reiterate that I really loved this. And while I had a good idea, a preconceived notion, of what would transpire here, I sat and stared at the ending and thought, ‘Bloody fuck. Where the hell do you go from here with it?’ :) It has vast potential, but I’m utterly blind to what it could possibly be, I haven’t the slightest fucking clue. Seriously. Which is a good thing, actually. You know how often that happens? Shit. *snorts* Absolutely NEVER. *heh* So kudos to you, on that count in the very least. Yeah, this is a controversial concept and likely to get you a bashing of sorts, but I promise to remind you to ignore them when needed because WOW. *glomps you* this is awesome shit.-Amendment-I went and read your other reviews before posting done so, I understand your concerns about ‘originality’.I would not give it much attention - the speculations of origin of the species, etc. is not a new concept, and thus no matter how you frame it, the result will ‘resemble’ something done previously simply based on the subject matter and the characters involved (God, LeSnake, Adam, and Eve). The plot and setting parallels (even if they are limited to this chapter) will inherently lead readers to draw such distinctions, and it’s rather inevitable - unavoidable, if you being said, I can honestly say that you’ve done a commendable job of transforming your grip on a tale passed down through 20 years of cultural, social, and historical influences into a fascinating past/future. It could viably be either one. Or perhaps both... .

JaveHarron chapter 1 . 5/25/2006

Hey! A post-historical Garden of Eden... A very fun idea. An idea just crossed by mind: A whole post-historic "Paradise Lost." This story reminded me of the 'deist version of the Garden of Eden.'